Archives for Aug 23rd, 2011
Massively Exclusive: Elsword developer Q&A, final round
That's right, Elsword fans, it's time for the final installment of the ongoing Elsword dev diaries. This last episode includes only a lone pair of questions, both of which focus on the developers' favorite things about the game -- particularly, their favorite bosses and best and worst moments w...
4X MMORTS Starjack Online goes live
Way back in February, we covered the open beta of Limbo Game Studios' Starjack Online. For the uninitiated, Starjack Online is an MMORTS of a variety known as 4X. RTS players will find themselves familiar with the 4X term, which stands for explore, expand, exploit, and exterminate. In a press r...
MMObility: HP pulls the old switcharoo with the TouchPad
If you are one of the unlucky few who decided to pick up one of the new HP TouchPad tablet PCs, I feel bad for you. First of all, pretty much all of the reviews I have read said that the device was not worth its $500 price tag. For that amount of dough, the hardware should have been sleeker, beef...
Super Hero Squad Online teasing Villainville
Super Hero Squad Online is sold on the strength of its characters, and up until now, it's been firmly on the heroic side of the equation. But Marvel Comics isn't limited to heroes like Spider-Man, Captain America, and Wolverine -- it's just as defined by villains like the Green Goblin, the Red Sk...
We are the Champions: New LotRO dev diary outlines upcoming Champion changes
A new developer diary from Turbine Entertainment was released today, and it outlines the changes coming to Lord of the Rings Online's Champion class with the Rise of Isengard. These changes are "meant to set them further apart from the other martial frontline classes." For instance, no longer ...
Astronaut MMO may finally launch (pun intended)
Just when Astronaut: Moon, Mars, and Beyond was about to be written off as vaporware, NASA has popped back on the scene to announce some commercial backing for the project from developers Project Whitecard, Wisdom Tools, and Virtual Heroes. According to the first announcement over two years ag...
City of Heroes to get frickin' laser beams [Updated]
If there's one common cry on the City of Heroes forums, it's "give us new power sets!" Fortunately, the upcoming Freedom expansion aims to deliver just that. This morning, CoH's Phil "Synapse" Zeleski offered up a new dev blog outlining one of the planned power sets, Beam Rifle. Available to Blas...
Hyperspace Beacon: Monday night Huttball! [Updated]
If memory serves me, the first MMO that integrated an actual sport into its game design was Free Realms. Although soccer was not implemented at launch, players could not miss the soccer fields, and eventually, the developers did put those fields to good use. I certainly don't believe the S...
One Shots: Gloom and beauty
Lord of the Rings Online has center stage for today's One Shots, thanks to Massively reader Carolina. She's been doing some exploring in Mines of Moria and shared a screenshot with us: I take a lot of screenshots from the environments in games, so I had a huge collection to choose one to send ...
Game Developers Choice Online Awards announces finalists, EQ to be ushered into Hall of Fame
It's not quite to the prestigious level of the Academy Awards -- yet -- but the Game Developers Choice Online Awards is fast becoming one of the more well-known and highly respected award ceremonies in the MMO world while only being in its second year. With October 12th's ceremony coming soon, th...
TERA devs talk guild housing and more in Twitter chat
In case you missed it, En Masse is hosting a TERA production chat via Twitter on the third Friday of every month. The transcript of last Friday's session is now live on the official TERA website, and there were a few noteworthy nuggets dropped by producer Brian Knox and community manager Evan Ber...
Antec to sell NCsoft-themed PC enclosures
So it's official, Antec and NCsoft are going out. OK, maybe it's not quite that creepy, but a new press release does note that the two companies have an "official relationship," which will be publicly consummated at next week's PAX Prime event. Antec, known primarily for its PC hardware and up...
The Soapbox: The Republic must stand, the Republic must fall
Disclaimer: The Soapbox column is entirely the opinion of this week's writer and does not necessarily reflect the views of Massively as a whole. If you're afraid of opinions other than your own, you might want to skip this column. So there's a game coming out called Star Wars: The Old Republic...
The Game Archaeologist uncovers Shadowbane: Talking with Josef Hall and Todd Coleman, part 1
After a couple of weeks of talking with players about their favorite experiences in Shadowbane, I decided it was high time to flip the discussion from those who played it to those who made it. Today we're going to kick off a two-part interview with the makers of Shadowbane, Josef Hall and Todd...
APB Reloaded gets North American retail distributor
OK, remember last month when GamersFirst seemed to shoot down the notion of APB Reloaded coming to a retail shelf near you? Apparently those rumors were more than idle scuttlebutt, and senior marketing VP Rahul Sandil's statement that GamersFirst was evaluating its options was more than idle P...
EVE is Real contests open for voting
EVE is Real has been online for a few weeks now, and CCP is ramping up the publicity machine in order to highlight what it's billing as a "memory museum" for its 8-year old sci-fi sandbox. Yep, EVE Online really has been around since 2003, and that's plenty of time to accumulate tons of images an...
'Blow your minds': The Secret World dreams of large-scale PvP
While the big news from The Secret World out of Gamescom was its April 2012 launch window, that's not all the developers had to say about this creeptastic title. Ragnar Tornquist opened up to Ten Ton Hammer about the game's epic large-scale PvP fights between the three factions of the Dragons, the...
EverQuest II's GU61 pushed back to Thursday
EverQuest II fans, get ready. Thursday marks the official launch of Game Update 61 (yes, Sony Online Entertainment has delayed it by a couple of days). The patch brings a whole slew of changes to Norrath and your characters, and EQ2Wire has the details. Whether we're talking about the massive alt...
Sony reinventing PlayStation Home to be more like an MMO
PlayStation Home was a hugely anticipated feature for console fans, one that ultimately garnered mixed reviews and apathetic affection. Due to the reception, Sony has decided to reinvent the game lobby-slash-virtual-world to incorporate the best of themeparks, MMOs, and social networks. When i...
The Daily Grind: Are appearance tabs essential?
Appearance tabs in MMOs are a funny thing. When you think about it, the implementation of an appearance tab is a signal that, on some level, the initial game design has failed to deliver. It's an admission that the best gear often looks like crap -- or is too prevalent -- and many players wouldn'...
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